Sargon II’s inscription describes conquest at Ashdod followed by the importation of populations and an imperial governor. Shawn Zelig Aster reads the episode within the replacement of the local political order by Assyrian provincial rule.

This is a population-transfer claim tied to an explicitly imperial exercise of power in ארץ ישראל EREẒ YISRAʾEL. The people transferred were themselves subject to coercion; identifying the empire’s colonizing act does not assign its purposes to every deportee. The Ashdod episode is separate from the earlier Samaria transfer and should not be absorbed into one undifferentiated Assyrian arrival.

1

How is this dated?

Aster’s note 33 prefers 711 BCE to the alternative 712 BCE for the campaign, following the cited chronological scholarship. The preferred year corresponds retrospectively to AM 3050–3051. It dates the campaign sequence, not an independently dated day of resettlement. The relevant inscription is RINAP 2, inscription 7, lines 97–109. No month or day is established for the transfer itself.

2

Guided reflections

  • How does an imperial population transfer differ from migration undertaken by people choosing a new home?
  • Why must the campaign date and the date of implementing resettlement remain distinct?

Footnotes

  1. Shawn Zelig Aster, Ashdod in the Assyrian Period: Territorial Extent and Political History — p. 329 note 33; p. 332, RINAP 2 inscription 7, lines 97–109 ↩
  2. Shawn Zelig Aster, Ashdod in the Assyrian Period: Territorial Extent and Political History — p. 329 note 33; p. 332, RINAP 2 inscription 7, lines 97–109 ↩